


We Make Use of What We Thought Was Waste

by PuppyGuppy



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: M/M, just hurt and like no comfort, mom is just wild and weird, this is kingdom hearts so no one actually dies, vague and poetic gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 16:08:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20744972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PuppyGuppy/pseuds/PuppyGuppy
Summary: A breeze ruffled his hair, and on it travelled an invisible sheet of music, one only his heart knew how to read, how to play. It lurched to life behind his ribs, the first note of a song composed at birth, practiced in promises, perfected in dreams, combined in kisses-But then the organgroaned,off-key and terrifying-it was wrong.





	We Make Use of What We Thought Was Waste

**Author's Note:**

> This is all just, very vague. A vague plot, with an even vague-er villain. Just vague, pretty, painful words. 
> 
> Been thinkin' 'bout Darkside Sora and his Nightmare catching a ride in his heart hole.

Sora squinted, eyes stinging against the stark contrast of Kingdom Hearts and the surrounding, starless sky. 

He blinked,  _ hard,  _ peered up and up and  _ up,  _ tried to clear his eyes, focus his vision on the pillars before him. But it was so far away, so hard to  _ see-  _ he just needed to get  _ closer,  _ goddamnit where were his happy thoughts? Why couldn't he think any  _ happy thoughts?  _ If he could just  _ fly  _ right now-

He blinked, and silver came into focus, bright and familiar and  _ heartbreaking.  _

" _ Riku!" _

A laugh started somewhere,  _ then right behind him,  _ but when he whirled around, there was nothing but empty space- then laughter, again, both from far away and inside his own head, all around and  _ everywhere.  _ It was full of inappropriate mirth and mock surprise, but it was a voice he didn't yet recognise. It was chilling in its joviality. But he could chase phantoms _later. _

He blinked, and hues of white came into focus. Moonpale skin, a tattered shirt,  _ Riku, Riku, Riku.  _

He blinked, and shades of red came into focus. He blinked,  _ red,  _ blinked,  _ red, crimson, Riku, blood.  _

No wonder he couldn't fly. Every single one of his happy thoughts now lay nailed to a haphazard crucifix before a bleeding heart eclipse. And where he prayed to see teal,  _ begged  _ for pretty pink, there was only the gnarled, fallen ring of a too-big crown of thorns. It was wrong. Wrong, wrong,  _ wrong.  _ Riku had shed his thorns long ago, had traded them for petals. Petals he pressed into the soft, shaky, secret spots of Sora's skin after drawing out nightmare after nightmare after  _ nightmare  _ night after night after night at the stroke of midnight.

"What to do, what to  _ do?  _ Your Prince of Darkness  _ needs  _ you, Sora." That voice drawled around him, lazy and egging. 

But it was wrong,  _ so wrong.  _ Riku wasn't a prince, and he did  _ not  _ belong in the dark. Riku was hot, he was  _ neon,  _ a mosaic of shattered rainbow shards, beautiful and designed to kill, practiced now in the profession. He  _ devoured  _ Darkness, lapped it up like good leftovers for lunch, Sora's own personal detox. Riku was a Master, a  _ knight.  _ He coaxed out the light, the bringer of day, he was the  _ dawn _ ; the first streak of blinding visibility in a bleak, black-hole horizon. 

But what good was any of that, when Riku kept  _ suffering  _ for him?  _ Because  _ of him? Why must he hurt  _ everyone?  _ Why must he  _ kill  _ the ones he loves? 

_ Why was he destined to be the king of broken hearts? _

Whoever was doing this, whoever they were, _they were wrong. _They had the wrong guy up there, with his sins as bare as his chest. They didn't _know. _They didn't see the shadows under Sora's eyes, hear the creak of doubt in his abused bones, the whistle of Darkness through a chest nearly vacant after spending a life so full of _others _(a life so full of sound, the insistent percussion of too many beats out of synch), they didn't feel the sheer gravity of _guilt _he constantly carried around, preventing him from eating for fear of his body having to lug around even _more. _Whoever the _fuck_ this person was, this new self-righteous, self-proclaimed, self-appointed missionary, _villain, _whatever, _whoever_ they thought they were, the only thing they truly were was dead _wrong- _

Because they didn't see the way Sora selfishly chased the Darkness, called out to it, toed at that death's edge just to have Riku in his head again, in his heart- it was easier to beg the Darkness to take him, than ask Riku for any more favors. Sora didn't fear the dark, as reckless as his reasoning. He  _ needed  _ it. The Darkness gave him  _ Riku,  _ and an addictive, thrilling kaleidoscope of pleasure-pain (he could no longer tell the difference between a  _ good  _ sting or a  _ bad  _ one). 

It should be  _ him  _ up there. But it wasn't. It was  _ Riku.  _ And what could he do? What could he  _ do?  _

"Better think  _ fast,  _ Chosen One." The voice again, right against his neck, hot and teasing and  _ disgusting _ . 

But Sora knew better than to look behind him now, knew he'd see nothing, no one. Despite the proximity of the voice, the  _ breath,  _ the owner could be anywhere, if even there at all. And there was no way he was taking his eyes off of Riku now; not even to watch his step, relying on years of experience with adrenaline-fueled instinct to keep his feet thumping on, then pushing off of, whatever they could. His heart had already mapped out the course, he just had to  _ trust  _ in it, and he'd learned long ago that the doubt of a check could send him careening back. He had to  _ trust, believe in himself,  _ just like Riku did-

before he was nailed to some sick, gothic homage of a Recusant's Sigil.  _ The  _ sigil.  _ His sigil.  _ Not Riku's. Because Riku's sigil was  _ breathtaking;  _ Soft and swirly peach. 

This guy  _ really  _ didn't get it. If X marked the spot, than why wasn't Sora hanging? 

He was getting  _ closer,  _ fueled by a complete lack of fucks,  _ closer,  _ fueled by fear,  _ closer still,  _ fueled by  _ rage- _ but he couldn't give himself in yet, not yet, had to shake the red from his peripherals and the coals from his fingertips. Rage made him  _ blind,  _ and no matter how much he wanted to turn away from the sight before him, he needed to  _ see,  _ needed to  _ think.  _ He needed to be able to tell the color of blood from everything else, if not it's scent, and Rage was just a sea of  _ copper. _

Rage was too easy these days. He found himself constantly stumbling into it, tripping on flashbacks of  _ failed attempts,  _ snagging his clothes on barely remembered  _ sacrifices,  _ spiralling down inky potholes with the muscle memory of  _ falling, fighting, drowning,  _ though on what, for what, in what-he couldn't remember. But Rage remembered. 

But this was  _ Riku.  _ And Riku didn't deserve his Rage (he had plenty of his own)- didn't deserve to be saved by ambiguous black and wild red. Riku deserved to be saved by steady hands and warm, saline eyes. 

So Sora pushed on, and up, one breath in, one breath out, and let the anger wash over him, steel his heart, freeze his resolve. He could burn for his boyfriend another day, when Riku's chest lay bare for  _ him  _ and his hungry mouth only, and not for the gaping, insatiable maw of a world and its people sadly subjected to the darkening. And he could see that chest now, he was  _ so close,  _ see the way it palpitated in shadow,  _ surefire proof of life _ . Not lost yet. Beaten,  _ broken _ , but not-

There was a sickening  _ bend  _ in the atmosphere _ ,  _ a grotesque warp of unseen space and time that sucked at the darkness lodged in his marrow, a familiar ache and flash of purple, a Dark Corridor. It appeared right behind Riku; it's tendrils lapping at his skin, weaving in his hair, and Sora was  _ so close, so close, right there,  _ reaching for Riku with his right hand and calling forth his keyblade with the other. But something was  _ off-  _ the Light there hesitated to meet him, lagged, and it felt like he was pulling his blade from crystallised honey. Like it was  _ stuck. _

" _ Fascinating _ how one planet's destruction can lead to the downfall of an entire galaxy.  _ Bang. _ " The voice had an  _ owner  _ this time, if you could call it that- just some figure hiding beneath an annoyingly familiar black coat. But at least the voice had a  _ place  _ now. And Sora had a target. 

But his keyblade was still  _ sticky,  _ and his resolve started to crack, confusion and fear digging desperate talons into his soft spots, lifting up his shell. 

"What's a galaxy without a Sun? What's a Sun without his Moon?" The voice mused aloud, whimsical and lilting and way too upbeat, considering their surroundings.  _ Why were they always so weird?  _

_ Why couldn't he call his- _

A dazzling, dizzying flash of light had him seeing spots, blinking blanks,  _ blind  _ in the sudden physical juxtaposition of yin and yang- there was a  _ tear,  _ an audible, visceral  _ squelch,  _ and Sora's arm itched something fierce, all the way from shoulder to fingertips, so he assumed it was his keyblade,  _ finally,  _ but when he curled his hand still around  _ nothing,  _ the stars burst in his eyes and revealed to him his keyblade,  _ yes _ , but not in  _ his  _ hands. In the bad guy's, and then lifting, pointing, square in the middle of Riku's back. Beneath the hood, the head tilted, and Sora caught the eerie eyeshine of  _ intent. _

He gasped, and for a long minute, that's all he could remember doing. 

" _ What?" _

Far away, there was a voice he maybe recognized, but it was hard to hear over the frost-flowers blooming in his chest, behind his eyes- sharp and freezing, crystal clear and breathtaking; leaves slicing like silver papercuts against his lungs when he breathed. The voice sounded…  _ angry?  _ How could someone be angry when it was the first day of Spring? When he could feel snowflakes falling, melting against his skin, too bare for the sudden drastic change in weather-

"Hng- _ Sora… " _

That voice was  _ close.  _ So close, in his ear,  _ in his head,  _ as familiar as the blood trying to rush passed the icicles in his veins, and echoing off the bones made brittle from too many half-baked heals. His eyes felt heavy, lashes damp, and as he tried to peel them open his face  _ tingled,  _ as if he'd been sleeping on it for too long. A few lethargic blinks later and sunlight kissed his pupils, reflecting off still springs shrouded in brambles. It sent his soul ablaze in the first terrible, too warm touches to his frostbitten skin. 

A breeze ruffled his hair, and on it travelled an invisible sheet of music, one only his heart knew how to read, how to play. It lurched to life behind his ribs, the first note of a song composed at birth, practiced in promises, perfected in dreams, combined in kisses-

But then the organ  _ groaned,  _ off-key and terrifying-  _ it was wrong.  _ A violin shrieked, sent his back arching-  _ wrong, wrong, wrong-  _ it hurt his ears, hurt his head, he wanted to scream, shout,  _ drown it out _ , but there was no way to muffle the phonograph blaring a backwards symphony through a hole in his chest.

He screamed anyway; silently, but still with the feeling of chalkboard beneath fingernails, a haunted intermission as the first act after the gasp fully realised itself within him.  _ Dawned on him.  _

He read about a girl, once, from the Age of Fairytales.  _ Snow White _ . He never understood why someone would want her dead- why would someone kill something so beautiful? But before him was hair as white as freshly fallen snow, eyes of pitch, dulling black, and lips as red and wet as rainy roses. Sora was staring at the fairest of them all and watching him  _ die.  _ And it shouldn't be, but it  _ was.  _ Beautiful. 

Why must he kill the ones he loves? 

But _ -no.  _ Riku wasn't dying. Because neither Sora, nor the cloaked coot behind them, took into consideration his suicidal savoir tendencies. The broken link in the most recent chain of his memories bent back into shape, gnarly but sufficient, as he realised what he'd done. Though purely instinctual and poorly executed, he'd link-rushed to Riku's aid, despite the reality there had just not been enough  _ time.  _ Because simultaneously, their enemy had taken their chance to plunge the Kingdom Key deep into Riku's back.  _ Through Riku's back.  _

And into Sora's own chest. 

On some useless form of lovestruck autopilot, Sora had gotten himself skewered to Riku. And the song in his chest, the  _ heart  _ in his chest, the reason it felt so  _ right _ but also so, so  _ wrong,  _ was because it wasn't  _ his.  _

It was Riku's. 

_ His  _ was behind him, dangling off the sharp-tip edge of his own keyblade. Soon to float away, dissolve into the atmosphere, then drip back down somewhere in that Final World. It wouldn't know  _ peace,  _ but it would be  _ safe.  _ He'd never truly known peace, anyways. Not outside of the dulling, harder and harder to focus on eyes before him. But it would be okay.  _ Riku  _ would be okay. 

" _ Sh-shh.  _ I've got y-you, Riku.  _ I've got you. _ "

And he did. Too big and too heavy and too red and too Light and too perfect, caged protectively behind his ribs. Right where he  _ belonged.  _ Riku would survive this. He'd make  _ sure  _ of it. He wasn't going to let him die for him  _ again.  _ Not permanently. And he sealed that unspoken oath with a kiss kept warm purely by adrenaline. Kept his eyes open to watch the last little lights flicker out of his boyfriend's. He deserved  _ that  _ at least- to not go alone. To be  _ seen.  _ Sora would always look at him, no matter how much it hurts. 

Only when Riku  _ drooped,  _ his chest slick and wet against his own, did Sora get another good look at their killer's silhouette. And Sora _ snarled.  _ Low and deep, all pretense dropped, as he got another good look at their killer's silhouette, who seemed to be in the middle of a meltdown. It was hard to keep up with his muttered, frantic mumbling, but Sora gathered something about another  _ x- _ blade, something about creating balanced worlds, ones of complete Darkness mingling with ones of complete Light.  _ Just another Destiny deprived lunatic. _

Sora couldn't help the moist, exhausted sigh. 

" _ Hey. _ "

His voice cut right through the rambling, and the figure hovered stock-still, as if shocked, and he liked to think the look on their face would be just as blank. He could feel his life-force leaving him, dripping down his legs and pooling in his shoes. Could feel another substance gathering in him, choking off his consciousness, thick and gritty like pulverised, wet charcoal. He  _ knew  _ what was going to happen. Generally. It had happened to him once before. But this time it felt  _ bigger.  _

So much bigger. 

There was no point in fighting the natural decomposition of his humanity now that he lacked his heart. So he  _ smirked,  _ felt the new heart in him clench in what he hoped was  _ approval  _ (and love and trust and support and  _ forgiveness),  _ and leveled his opponent with a haughty squint. 

"Destiny can't be controlled by _you_."

He pulled Riku's body nice and tight against him, held it in a deathgrip ( _ literally),  _ and used the extra weight to help force them back off the blade in a wretched, wet  _ slip.  _

The blackcoat blinked out of existence. 

And then there was falling. 

And then there was  _ diving _ . Deep and fast through an impact that should have broken every bone in his body. 

And then technicolour Darkness. A void made visible by the garish, messy consumption of a Nightmare turned  _ terror.  _ Sora felt himself spread impossibly thin and wide, as if he somehow could brush each corner of the galaxy with his fingers and toes, before it,  _ he,  _ was all sucked and crushed back in at a velocity that had his blood vessels bursting, ear drums rupturing, possibly even his brain popping. It hurt on a scale beyond tolerancey, more than  _ anything,  _ yet he couldn't actually  _ feel  _ anything. Because he wasn't anything. 

Except Darkness. 

And then Darkness was everything.  _ He  _ was everything. And everything was  _ big.  _

Big, bigger,  _ bigger,  _ pushing and growing and  _ towering,  _ until he felt himself blink with no lids, practically eye-level with the moon. 

_ Kingdom Hearts.  _

For a minute, he just stared, because that's all he knew. Kingdom Hearts, now more red than blue, the center pulsing an angry purple. But then something stirred, somewhere, drew his blank gaze away and downward towards his- oh, right, his hand. His giant, black, clawed hand-

And the creature resting  _ in  _ it.  _ Crumpled _ in it. Trembling in it. But glowing, vibrant and _ beautiful.  _ And warm.  _ Alive.  _ With a pulse, with a  _ heart,  _ he could hear it, ringing in his head. And this is what he knew,  _ too.  _ The instinctual,  _ insatiable  _ desire to consume the precious. But not this one.  _ Not this one.  _ This one was not for him, but  _ for  _ him. This one was laced with venom, brewed by the same brand of Darkness, stewed in the same kind of damned, now eternal ache. 

The creature in his palm released a shaky breath, then peaked up at him with eyes as pink as a heart he'd seen now twice before, in a life that disjointedly felt like his. 

"Sora?"

The voice was so much  _ harder  _ to hear, muffled by the beating of a delicious, forbidden heart, even harder to  _ understand _ , a language he no longer had a tongue to relate the syllables to. But, the sound almost sounded like a beat itself, a ba-bum of recognition which would have settled somewhere in his chest were there not a gaping hole there now. 

A hole where his heart should be. A heart from his past life,  _ Sora's life. _

There was silence. Painful, yes, but also almost _awkward. _Because somewhere there was something _missing, _more than just the blatantly obvious, a second beat of another two syllables that naturally, always followed the other. 

_ Ri-ku _ . Ba-bum. 

He couldn't  _ say  _ it. Couldn't even really actually  _ feel  _ it. But somehow, the Nightmare in his hands,  _ Riku,  _ still knew. Maybe it was said in the way he hadn't scooped his guts out with a talon yet. Either way, Riku rolled around in his hand until more properly situated, with one of his  _ tiny  _ midnight hands braced against his thumb, wings sagged against his palm, and eyes still glued to his. There were emotions there, easy to read in their negativity; despair, anger, sorrow, but then also ones he couldn't remember how to decipher, left blind in their brightness, their  _ Lightness;  _ determination, hope, sympathy-

_ Love?  _

"Don't worry,  _ Pint and a Half,  _ we'll find your heart." There was a flash of  _ white,  _ teeth and fangs, and a flutter of that something  _ familiar  _ again. Just out of reach. Like a mirror that kept fogging over, no matter how many times he wiped at it, he never got a good enough  _ look.  _ Even with eyes that felt larger than he used to be. 

Had he had a mouth, he felt like he might have tried to argue, even if still  _ voiceless.  _ What good was  _ his  _ heart, when he could have so many others? What made his so  _ special?  _ It fell, just like all the rest. And, by the looks of it, it fell  _ hard.  _ Hard enough to corrupt this world, doom countless others, and for  _ what?  _

For an infinity finally spent with the heart in his hand. 

No, he didn't  _ need  _ his heart. Didn't even want it. He had a better one already. Someone else could have his. And the wars, and the weapons that went with it. It was someone else's turn. The heart he had now was a perfect fit. 

As if to prove this unspoken point, slowly, he raised his hand up to the emptiness in his body, braced it there, then gently eased Riku into it. Who went just as silently, just as easily, just like he belonged there,  _ perfect _ .

There was something so  _ right  _ in its absurdity, Riku perching all dainty and lethal against the curve of his cold, vacant heart. At least from a distance, the vibrant flash of pink admits pitch blacks and indigos might fool others into thinking he still  _ had  _ his heart. That they were one, and not  _ two.  _

It's how it always should have been, and how it was always  _ going  _ to be, whether it be in the Dark or the Light. Destiny was an unforgiving, mysterious mistress, but they'd bent her to their will  _ before _ . And if the look on his Nightmare's face was anything to go by, as he took his first hearth-hammering step, they would do it  _ again.  _


End file.
